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They added an overlay on how to play the game. This increased retention by 1.8%

So did it work? Yes! But not 1% total. They hit 0.81%

Key takeaways: Keep it simple. User stories can save your sanity. Always include your team. Build your research process. So that when you need to apply research, you can do so right away.

(I missed the last two talks as I had a long and good discussion with someone about hyped technology systems and confirmation bias. I'll link some things here that I think are important to relate: 1. mikelovesrobots.substack.com/p/wheres-the... 2. metr.org/blog/2025-07...

(3. @edzitron.com's work: www.wheresyoured.at/ai-is-a-mone... 4. The video I made recently in relation to blockchain, metaverse, and LLM AI in gamedev: youtu.be/CeZ_rcDQg6Q?... The earlier talk today that mentioned confirmation bias made me realize this is all related to those hypes.)

Next, another talk about World of Warships. How do you measure player satisfaction? How do you make sense of it?

They have 4 facets of satisfaction: Early, immediate, in-depth, and long-term. Each has different data that is important depending on the questions they need to answer.

By having this data, they can readily see if released content is too difficulty or too drastic. Gathering the data always means you have a baseline to compare to. So questions can be answered right away. (Reminding me of a previous talk, of having the user research systems always ready to go)

Same with data to identify a satisfaction drop after a feature launch, and a 'trinket' problem. In this case by adding a question to the system right after a match. So players would get a single question, and that gave them enough data to infer impact from when they launched content.

This question to the player can be a range, e.g. 1-5, but also open ended. Then a word cloud can be made from the open ended questions, which gives them a quick answer about most often used words without too much digging into the raw data.

Through the combination of all these elements, the entire 'ship' of user research can be built. If one element were missing, it would not float. Having all elements allows them to have the views they need to make accurate decisions.

Q: Do you ever have a hard time relating data to a particular change? A: (very long pause) ...yeah.

Next talk: Demystifying Sensitivity Reading to make games better (not 'just' inclusive)

Can you imagine making a movie about the French Revolution without a French historian? Or about northern mythology without an expert? An accessible website without including disabled people? Of course you would include an expert on the thing you are building. The same goes for culture.

'Sensitivity reading' is not about forcing DEI, censorship, judging, or woke/broke. It is about immersion, being memorable, avoiding backlash, and a virtuous cycle. It is about creating quality content. Like you would with historical projects.

That work can cross many different parts of a videogame, such as language, character design, communication, world building, stereotypes, and creative choices.

Showing an example of Sifu, which did not have Chinese employees and was not looked over by an expert in Chinese culture, which caused some mistakes to be made.

Life is Strange True Colors: A good example, as they had a diverse team and consultants which helped avoid any issues.

Recommendations are to reach out early, be open minded, and having clarity of what can and cannot be adjusted. For the readers (consultants) make sure to be flexible, don't judge, and cross-collaborate.

Q: Why is it called sensitivity reading and not cultural consulting or something else? A: It's to do with it usually having been used for books. Call it whatever you want.

Last talk of the Game UX Summit 2025: Love Brings You Home, by David Sears

David talks about his growing up in the US south, and how that eventually led him to build South of Midnight.

How does he direct a game correctly with those experiences? What should and should not go into the game? He uses four questions to answer that.